


The Important Work of Telling the Truth

by sixappleseeds



Series: The Evolution of Pynch [6]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 02:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2411918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixappleseeds/pseuds/sixappleseeds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Concerning conversations immediately after a crucial scene in "Bruises."  Adam's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Important Work of Telling the Truth

Adam woke with the sensation of someone stirring behind him. _Ronan_ , he thought dimly, because Ronan always left at dawn. He burrowed his head into his pillow. It was warm under the covers, and unlike Ronan, Adam’s alarm didn’t go off for another two hours. He sank back towards sleep. 

A sudden chill made him growl, the best he could do in a semi-conscious state, and he rolled over, grabbing the blankets back as he went. 

“Take it easy, Parrish,” Ronan whispered. Adam felt a hand brush across his hair. He opened his eyes. Ronan was leaning over him, a curiously open look on his face. Adam blinked. In a rush, he remembered the night before. 

They had --- 

_He_ had --- 

Adam jerked away.

That openness in Ronan’s eyes faltered. He sat back, stood up. Adam noticed Ronan was only wearing boxers. He stared, and he knew Ronan let him. Neither of them spoke. Adam felt struck dumb with the useless disbelief that it had been his decision, his _decisions_ , one after the other, that resulted in his hands now knowing the shape of Ronan’s shoulders, and his eyes now tracing the stubble along Ronan’s jaw. There were new marks on Ronan’s neck. His. 

It was too much: he needed to think. But he couldn’t think about any of this with Ronan standing there, nearly naked, staring down at him.

Finally Ronan shook his head. “Whatever, man.” He pulled on his clothes, checked for his wallet and keys, and squared his shoulders. “See you around.” Then he left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Adam thumped back onto his pillow. The bed was warm with not only his body heat but with Ronan’s as well. He realized that he, too, was only wearing his boxers. 

He wasn’t falling back asleep now, that was for damn sure. So he let himself remember, and he wondered if he’d already managed to break things beyond repair. 

.

If Adam had had a cell phone, he would have texted Ronan that morning. 

_hey ronan i’m sorry. wanna hang out later? -adam_

_im an idiot. can i see u today?_

_lynch. call me._

Because Ronan had church, and Adam had work, and the more he thought about the morning, the worse he felt. Ronan had looked _hopeful_. Adam had never associated the words “Ronan Lynch” and “hope” before, but in Adam’s memory the expression he’d seen upon opening his eyes could be nothing other. And he’d killed it. 

He didn’t have a cell phone. If things had been normal he wouldn’t be seeing Ronan until this evening, or maybe tomorrow, but now he couldn’t wait that long.

He stood by his car behind St. Agnes, watching some of the church’s staff talk outside before the parishioners arrived. They weren’t paying any attention to him, poor boy by a poor car in the early-morning shadows. 

“Noah,” he whispered. Maybe it would work. Noah went to Mass with the Lynch family, maybe he was already here. The breeze stirred the tree branches above him and Adam hunched against it. He could smell fall, in that wind. He’d need to find a space heater for his apartment soon. “Noah,” he whispered again. 

“What?” Noah whispered back, right next to his good ear. Adam jerked. Noah was standing next to him, eye to eye, ear to ear. When Adam stepped back he saw Noah was smirking. 

“You get a real kick out of doing that, don’t you?” Adam muttered.

Noah raised his brows imploringly, though his eyes still twinkled. “You _called_ me.” 

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Well.” He kicked his tire. “If you see Ronan, ah. Could you tell him...” He noticed Noah was smiling again and ignored it. “Just tell him that I’m sorry about this morning, but nothing else. Just tell him that, okay?” 

“Okay,” Noah said. He rocked back on his heels. “You’re sorry about this morning, but not last night.” 

Adam felt his ears redden. “That’s not what I ---” But it was, it was exactly what he meant. Adam sighed. “Noah,” he tried again, “don’t tell anyone else, okay?” 

Noah’s eyes widened. “Of course not,” he said, quite seriously. “It’s not my secret.” 

.

Adam spent his shift at the trailer factory thinking about what he could say to Ronan to make things better. This largely entailed figuring out how he felt about the fact that he and Ronan had kissed last night. More than kissed. He ran his tongue over his teeth, and bit his lip lightly. Definitely more than kissed. 

But it was with _Ronan_. Ronan was a lot of things to Adam, but at the bottom of it all he was one of Adam’s best friends. And kissing him - more than kissing him - was something he sort of wanted to try again.

But it was Ronan. Not Blue. Granted, Blue had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with Adam, but at least that had been _normal_. Wanting to kiss Blue was normal. Wanting to kiss Ronan? Adam probed at the hulking thing looming at the edges of his thoughts ---

_Got a fucking faggot for a son_ , his father’s voice snarled. Adam gasped, and almost missed his cue on the assembly line. One of his co-workers shouted, “Mind those fingers Parrish!” Adam shook himself, disgusted. He wasn’t. There was no way he could be. No way. But it was _Ronan_... 

And so his mind turned, and turned.

.

By the time Adam climbed the steps to his apartment, the sun was edging the tree line. He thought he might just give up on this day and go to bed. He had a convenience store sandwich and a bottle of juice in his bag for dinner, but he wasn’t hungry. 

Ronan was sitting on the landing outside Adam’s door. Adam stopped, eye-level with him on the stairs, and stared. Ronan stared back. Like last night, the moment stretched, seemed to change with the yawning silence between them, but unlike last night Adam knew how much of what happened next depended on him telling the truth. His belly twisted. Ronan watched him, and in the shadows his eyes looked black.

Adam cleared his throat. “Did Noah tell you...?” he attempted. Ronan twitched a brow. Yes, Noah did tell him, but Ronan would make Adam say it himself. From somewhere below, Adam heard a door slam, and a woman’s laugh.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said. He hated that his voice shook. “About this morning. About not saying anything. I didn’t mean ---” _No excuses, Parrish_. He took another breath. The step below him squeaked. “I should’ve said something, but I didn’t, but if you’ll hear me I’d like to try and say something now.”

Ronan jerked an eyebrow up. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t break Adam’s gaze either. 

Words crowded in Adam’s head. _I’m not gay, Ronan. How can you trust me? No one wants me. I am unknowable. I am alone. Why do you trust me? I’m not gay. I won’t be your faggot. I want your hands on me. I want you. I’m not gay. I like girls. I like you. I’m not a fag_ \--- Too many words, and he couldn’t say any of them.

What he said instead was, “Could we start this again?”

Finally Ronan moved. He dropped his head back against the door, dropped his shoulders, and dropped his gaze. This seemed like progress to Adam. He finished climbing the stairs and sat down on the landing.

“Do you know what your face looked like this morning?” Ronan murmured. Adam had to tilt his head around to hear properly.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.” 

“You looked horrified, Parrish.” Ronan made the word “horrified” sound like it was causing him literal pain. It certainly did inside Adam.

He studied the floor boards by his knee. _Fix this. Fucking fix this_. “I didn’t feel horrified.” _There was some truth_. “Terrified, maybe.” He nodded to himself. “Surprised.” He glanced up at the ceiling. The sunset through the top window made the shadows there look pink. 

“I mean, hell. Yesterday morning I’d barely thought about... Well.” _The truth, Parrish_. “Well, about you in that way, I guess. About kissing you. And then last night? And then this morning?” He rubbed a hand over his face because he still couldn’t look at Ronan. “That’s a pretty big leap in a twenty-four hour period, don’t you think?”

After a moment, Ronan reached over and took his hand. His fingers brushed over Adam’s skin like Adam was something Ronan could break. Adam didn’t think he was. He thought it might be the opposite. But watching Ronan’s hand touching his made something uncurl inside of him, slow and lazy, and Adam shifted on the step to lean towards him. 

“Yeah,” Ronan agreed. He squeezed Adam’s hand then, and said, “You sure surprised me last night, man.” Adam caught the flash of Ronan’s teeth, his smile in the shadows, and then Ronan looked up. “You thought about this before? About...” Ronan gestured with the hand that held Adam’s. “You and me?”

What Adam had thought about were the marks on Ronan’s skin, how he’d gotten them, why he had them, and what Ronan might sound like if he, Adam Parrish, were to bite him in just those places. He had thought about that more than he could admit right now. “Yeah,” Adam said. He frowned. “What is this, though?”

“It’s me,” Ronan said. “It’s just me. And you’re the one who started it.” 

Adam looked back down at their joined hands. “Yeah. I did.”

Ronan’s voice was a whisper. “If you wanted to kiss me again, I’d say yes.” 

Adam was having trouble reconciling this Ronan, whispering in the dark, with the handsome, arrogant asshole Adam knew as his friend. “And what if I didn’t?” he murmured.

Ronan hissed. Adam felt that breath across his face. What he’d just asked wasn’t the truth, but he’d had to say it to figure that out.

“Well,” Ronan said after a moment. He loosened his hand in Adam’s. “I’ll pretend it never happened.”

Adam didn’t let go. “Really?” 

“I’d be fucking pissed, Parrish.” Ronan’s voice was already edging on furious. “I wouldn’t’ve done anything if you hadn’t started it. I never would have touched you.” He yanked his hand out of Adam’s. “But you did start it. And I’ll try to forget it, if that’s what you want.” 

Adam nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Good thing that’s not what I want.” 

Ronan froze. “What?”

Adam repeated, “That’s not what I want,” and made it true for himself, too.

“Okay.” It was so dark now that Ronan was a silhouette, his features barely discernible, but Adam saw him swallow. “What do you want, then?” 

_What do you want, Adam?_ It was easier to say in the dark. “I want to invite you in. I want to kiss you again. I want you to make that noise you made last night, whatever it was. I want to make you make that noise.” Adam pushed himself to his feet, and held out a hand for Ronan. “I want you to stay. And if you don’t want any of those things? Well. Then I guess I’ll be the one pretending this didn’t happen.” 

Ronan gripped Adam’s outstretched hand, and Adam hauled him up. “When’s the part,” Ronan said, standing very close, “where you tell me you’re not gay?” 

Adam closed his eyes. “I’m not gay,” he said. A truck went by outside, too loud against the sudden silence. In the distance, the katydids were starting up again. He blinked his eyes open. “But telling myself that doesn’t make me want to kiss you any less.” 

“Okay,” Ronan said again. Adam knew his answer wouldn’t satisfy either of them for very long, but he was done with thinking for now. He looked down at Ronan’s mouth, and saw some of Ronan’s old arrogance twist there as he said, “If that’s all you want, I guess I can learn to settle.”

Adam smiled to himself as he unlocked his door. As he turned on the light in his room, he looked over his shoulder and let Ronan see that smile. “Lynch? You’re not settling for anything.”


End file.
